'25 Great Music-Making Tips From Musicians' via Music Thing

Some Good advice. Thanks to John for the link.

1. Like Kraftwerk, have a non-music day every week or so (Anonymous computer musician)

2. If things go wrong, just maintain that you were playing jazz (Max/MSP enthusiast)

3. Play less (Guitarist, and lots of other people)

4. When learning to play a piece of music, play it first so slowly that you don't get a single note wrong. Then slowly increase the speed. Then, play louder than normal at the proper speed and you'll play more confidently (A bass player and a synth tweaker)

5. When editing, don't cut the breath off before someone starts talking or singing (Guitarist)

6. Finish the first draft (Bass plyer)

7. It's essential to begin every recording by asking 'Are we Recording?' (Guitarist - is that you, Peter?)

8. Before you start for the day, go for a long walk (Computer musician)

9. Listen. Listen very carefully. No. REALLY listen. (A guitarist, although 115 people used the word 'listen' in their tips)

10. Wear earplugs (Drummer)

11. Hit it hard, ye massive ponce (Drummer)

12. Grab some string and bend it. If it doesn't sound right move up a fret and try again. (Guitarist)

13. Start now, don't wait (Keyboard player)

14. Get into the groove / Boy, you've got to prove / Your love to me (Guitarist)

15. Retune your guitar, so you don't know the notes, then try making music with only your ears as guides (Keyboard player)

16. Tune your guitar, play in time (Guitarist)

17. Do it in triplets! (Programmer)

18. Make, go sleep and check again tomorrow... (Synth tweaker)

19. You may think you're playing your instrument, but what you're really playing is the audience (Studio engineer)

20. Keep your cigarette lighter away from my drummer - He'll set fire to anything that burns (Nord Modular enthusiast)

21. Do something every day. Even if all you do is make a beat or write some lyrics or a bassline or whatever, do something. Even if you just have a few minutes a day to spare, the material you have quickly builds up (Field recordist)

22. "Play more things that make me dance around and less things that make me sit and look miserable in a plastic chair" - Brian Eno (Guitarist)

23. Learning any instrument is about scales. Scales. Scales. Scales. The trick is to make learning the scales interesting. Which is hard. And I've never done it. Which is a shame (Studio engineer)

24. Never listen to the same loop for longer than 10 minutes (Beat maker)

25. Write as many songs as you can and pick the best (Guitarist)

(Source)

- C

Custom Order: Fotosis No. 007, Noise Generating Synth.

Hello world, its been some months since we have completed anything in the realm of homemade electronics. Basically we have had our world turned upside down lately, I am now living in a whole other country working at a new job and trying to do as much Fotosis related work as possible on my off time when I come back to Lyon on the weekends.

This project was a custom order that challenged us to develop several new systems, most notable a sample and hold circuit and a micro-controller based trigger pulse generating system.

There are too many controls to list individually and descriptions would be difficult because I don't think it would be possible to find similar controls on another system to compare them to. This will probably be the last time I try to make an all in one unit this complex due to the time it took to develop build, test and debug the various circuits and programs that it contains. I feel in the future it would be better to build each of the systems individually and house them in separate enclosures that could be attached to some sort of board that gives them power etc.

Anyway here it is in action Fotosis No. 007...



There are still two more sections to complete, a CV interpretation module that will take in a control voltage and convert it to trigger pulses that can be used with the trigger pulse system and also a rocker pedal that will control the pitch of the oscillators as well as several other functions.

The sound range from more conventional synth noises to full on noise as well as different patterns of beeps and tones created by the trigger pulse generator. It would be the type of instrument ideally suited to someone wishing to create strange little samples for use on their tracks or it could be used live as a bizarre noise generating unit.

So essentially I am not going to go into details regarding the technical elements because there are just too many, so please just bask in the glory of this weird and interesting creation.

-J

'Will DIY geeks save American ingenuity?' via Collision Detection

I've been an avid reader of Clive Thompson for some time. Being a subscriber and a fan of Wired magazine since the late 1990's, his writing always spoke to me and his most recent article is no exception. Thompson recently updated his blog to coincide with the publication of his commentary on 'How DIYers Just Might Revive American Innovation' in the latest 16:03 issue (Wired's 15th Anniversary).

I know it has nothing to do with music nor am I (or John) American, but it speaks to all people who are venturing out on their own to create art, a way of life, a business and a new set of rules to work by. The DIY culture is one we obviously feel close to being the founders of this project, Fotosis, and our various other hobbies. As someone with no formal education, I know that skills are in demand, that there are many who are out there doing things that weren't taught but learned, experienced firsthand, hands dirty and curious. Let's keep this innovation going then and hope the movement avoids being pigeon-holed into a mere trendy past-time and remains a true revolution.

From blog: "Can you fix things that break in your household? Probably not. Our schools systematically stream "smart" people away from working with their hands, and I think that's a huge problem for the US, on pretty much every level -- commercially, globally, intellectually and spiritually, really."

From Wired:

"The decay has been rapid. Only a few decades ago, most serious adults were expected to be fluent in basic mechanics. If your car or stove or radio broke down, you opened it up and fixed it. "Magazines like Popular Mechanics in the '40s and '50s would publish projects like an automated pig-feeding trough, and they assumed you had the tools and skills to make it," says Dale Dougherty, editor and publisher of Make magazine.

But as we migrated to an information economy, those skills began to seem as quaint as, well, mechanical clocks. America's bright future, we were assured, wasn't industrial. It was in the hands of "symbolic analysts" -- folks who sat at desks and thought for a living. In the '90s, the rise of the Internet sent this post-mechanical age into a sort of giddy overdrive. Remember Nicholas Negroponte urging everyone to "move bits, not atoms"?

But when we stop working with our hands, we cease to understand how the world really works."

Read the blog post on Collision Detection.
Read the Wired article.

- C

Interview With The Creator of Pixelache via WMMNA

We Make Money Not Art has an interesting interview with Helsinki based Pixelache organiser Juha Huuskonen. Huuskonen is a multi-talented DJ, artist and software designer, and according to the article, also deemed one of the "Godfathers of the Finnish media art mafia". Wow!

The Pixelache 'movement' has certainly taken off successfully since its' last 6 years. There is even a Pixelache University with monthly events throughout the network.

For those of you unfamiliar, the Pixelache festival brings together media and technology creations and ideas through various events and festivals in several international cities including Paris, Montreal and New York. Like most events, there are informative seminars, concerts and related exhibits. We tried to attend the last one in Paris (Mal au Pixel) but unfortunately couldn't even though we were in the city around the same time. Let's hope we have the opportunity this year!


Here are some excerpts from the interview,
How Pixelache began:
"The first Pixelache festival in 2002 was put together in an improvised manner, with a tiny budget of a couple of hudred euros. The purpose was to bring local active people together to discuss and present experimental work that fell between the categories - not art, not design, not research, but kind of all of these at the same time. This type of work is of course shown in all kinds of international festivals (today even more than a few years ago) but the other special thing about Pixelache has been that we've focused on showing work by young, emerging creators and taking risks by showing work that is still in the concept or prototyping stage."

Pixelache in other countries:
"Our international events started in 2003, when we organised Pixelache festival in New York and Montreal. Both festivals were organised on a shoestring budget, with a lot of effort and enthusiasm from both organisers and artists. We carried most of the necessary gear and artworks as luggage, organised free/very cheap accommodation and traveled on a Greyhound bus between New York and Montreal.

The events in New York and Montreal brought together a quite unusual combination of local organisations that all had a lot of influence in planning the festival program. In addition to international guests, both events featured a lot of local artists, many of whom were later invited to Helsinki. We have maintained this way of working ever since. The model is sort of opposite to ISEA: instead of a separate international jury, the local organisations are in charge of the program, they never have to present projects that they don't consider relevant for the local context. The program decisions are aided by an on-going discussion between various partners within the Pixelache network."

Read the entire interview here at WMMNA.

Links:

Pixelache
Pixelache University
Mal au Pixel
WMMNA


- C

Free Sounds - 'Collaborative Database Of Audio Snippets, Samples, Recordings, Bleeps'

Thanks to Dzendvokh, I now know about the freesound project. Details from their site,


The Freesound Project aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, ... released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License. The Freesound Project provides new and interesting ways of accessing these samples, allowing users to

• browse the sounds in new ways using keywords, a "sounds-like" type of browsing and more
• up and download sounds to and from the database, under the same creative commons license
• interact with fellow sound-artists!

Really like the idea of an open and organised database, we've certainly been stuck trying to find the right sound for a project.

Visit the site to find out how to participate as an individual or institution.

The Freesound Project

- C

Sequencer Triggered By Ball Bearings via Geekologie

We definitely have the monome on our to-buy list, but I'd much prefer something like this...



Peter D. Bennett's other videos are worth a browse too, he has some other interesting contraptions on his YouTube page here. Great work!

- C

Peter's page
Source

Art / Bloog, A Thing of Beauty

Just saw this on BoingBoing. Industrial design student Andrew Haarsager created this gorgeous 60's Moog inspired real-time blog scrambler/RSS feed reader. No music making but it's still wonderful.

Andrew's site is here. Check it out, he has posted some other interesting projects.

- C

Happy Holidays / Download Fotosis EP

About two weeks ago we embarked on a little project to remix a track by another group. It was to be a fun project for Christmas that would be released on the web etc. etc.

Anyway we started messing around with this track and after a few hours of cutting and pasting and applying effects in Audacity it was decided that we take a break and since we had all or our gear set up it might be fun to jam a little and record the results.

Well two days later we had 28 minutes (10 short tracks) of music that we were very happy with. An entire EP comprised of sounds created using a collection of household objects a bank of guitar effects pedals and our very own home made instruments. I suppose the resulting collection of tracks could be described as a blend of ambient electronica, dronescape experimentalism and randomized improvisation.

We do not claim to be professional musicians in any shape manner or form but we were extremely surprised with the results. One visiting friend who was the first person aside from ourselves to listen to the EP described it as "Dark" as if it didn't fit our personalities:-)

Well the track we were supposed to be remixing was sort of forgotten and buried under the responsibilities of everyday life coupled with a heavy dose of procrastination and was eventually returned to only for us to find that our dark electro souls didn't really lend themselves to Christmas songs and so we failed in our mission to create the next Xmas number one:-) But we did end up with a collection of really interesting little tracks as a byproduct.

Below you will find two links, one where you can listen to our tracks and the other where you can download a zip file that contains all the tracks and a text file relating to the methods and equipment used to create our music.

You can download and listen to the tracks here or get the entire EP zip file here (In.solit.us the site we use to host our files is a bit weird you have to scroll down to get to the button that lets you grab the track, its below the stupid banner ad).

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year,
John & Connie

Archive Photos - The Bob Moog Foundation on Flickr

Been browsing through this archive today and I am surprised that there aren't more comments for these great shots. The photostream includes one of the last MiniMoogs ever made, MoogerFooger prototypes and a hand drawn schematic that is quite touching to see for its' simplicity.

From the Flickr profile:

"Documenting the archives of prototypes, schematics and a lifetime of innovative engineering that Dr. Bob Moog left behind. His instruments changed the sounds of modern music and many of them were built with the tools laid out before you in this photo gallery."

Go have a look.

The Bob Moog Foundation's Photos
Bob Moog Foundation

- C

(picture from the bob moog foundation archives)

Custom Order: Bar Set, Cardboard Keyboard and Cardboard Amp / Part Two...

This is the second post concerning the bar set order, we decided to throw in some little extras, a cardboard keyboard and a cardboard amp.

The keyboard is a simple enough affair as it is based on a simple circuit that involves a 555 timer chip to produce a square wave. The casing was created by laminating lots of layers of cardboard together using glue and wood screws. In the video below we are playing the keyboard into the ring modulator of one of our earlier instruments, Fotosis No. 003. The resulting sound is the effect of the square wave noise section from Fotosis No.003 being fed into the carrier input of the units ring mod. and keyboard on the main input.



The amplifier is actually three amps and three speakers in one box. The amps are LM386 chips providing 2.5 Watts each. This set up allows us to play three separate devices into the amp where each device will have its own input, volume control, amp and speaker.

Part one of this post can be viewed here.

- J

Custom Order: Fotosis No. 006, Bar Set, Optical Sequencer, Egg Beater Theremin / Part One...

Connie here. We've been working on a custom order set the last 4 weeks for someone I am very close to. If anything, I wouldn't think anyone else would be capable of supporting 'fotosis' like he has with this one project. In the infancy of our little 'business', it's the friends and loved ones who help us get through the days of uncertainty; the ones who understand our simple dream and allow us to feel that for everything we make, they truly want to be a part of our growing passion and humble expertise. (FYI - I thank all our friends at the end of our blog and also through regular posts)

This set will be showcased in a local popular bar downtown that is known for weekly live music. The requirements were in keeping with our love for recycled materials and parts, as the need for the instruments to be durable to withstand euphoric drunken customers and also the respect of a handmade retro aesthetic including Meccano pieces & salvaged vintage connectors.

We really enjoyed designing and creating this interactive ensemble, something that anyone passing by would want to touch (very important) and an experienced musician could properly plug and play with.


Here is John with the specs;

The optical sequencer contains two oscillators one generating a sine wave the other a square wave. These oscillators are set up as optical theremins, their frequency being determined by three LDR's mounted on the front or the unit.

There are also a number of patch leads, permanently connected at one end to the outputs of a micro-controller. These leads can be connected to banana jacks on the front panel allowing the micro-controller to send trigger pulses to opto-couplers that reroute the frequency determining components connected to the oscillators. The time between trigger pulses is set by a value read from another five LDR's that are connected to the analog inputs of the micro-controller.



Both sound producing sections of the unit are then fed into and mixed by a passive ring modulator before amplification. The resulting noise is a random series of beeps blips and noise that you can interact with by applying lights or shadows to the eight LDR's on the control panel.

The sound producing chips I used for this build were the XR2206 (Sine Wave) and a 40106 (Square Wave).

As this unit is for public use it was important to make the controls as simple as possible so the pots are all dual pots. Example the volume also controls intensity and the filter is also square wave frequency.

The matching theremin with the Egg Beater for an aerial is a solid state unit based on a modified schematic we found online a while back.

All of the materials used to manufacture the casings were found objects like Meccano, random collected screws, bits of metal and wood also a strange French industrial on/off switch.

The whole setup runs off a single boss PSA 230, 9v DC supply.

Part two of this post can be viewed here.

Custom Order: Recycled Portable Theremin

Another artist and musician ordered a portable theremin a couple of weeks ago. I just recently made this one that allowed for an interchangeable aerial which means you can connect the clip to a spoon or a guitar, or say, a drum set while you're touring with your band (right leftoverking?). This handmade theremin would be similar to that one. LOK and I agreed on using a recycled theme and he wanted something durable, which is the idea - portability, ease of storage and tough.


The case is made out of recycled wood, newspaper, cracker packaging and bits of steel & aluminum and has 2 vintage knobs. John made the crocodile clip. It's a unique little instrument that I hope the new owner will enjoy experimenting with.




- C

My previous posts on theremins:
Portable Theremin
Saw Theremin